


The Way

by EbonyandYew



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyandYew/pseuds/EbonyandYew
Summary: Penance only counted when it was voluntary, and last Bridget Walker checked she did not sign up for this.





	1. Chapter 1

She didn’t spend much time with the rest of the team. She was an over glorified taxi most of the time. The rest of the hours outside of her cell were taken up hauling Rick Flag around while trying to gather whatever shit Waller wanted next. Everything from missile defense plans to dirty love letters slipped their way through the Way and into the Wall’s formidable hands. 

It was what she was meant to do today, except Flag was caught up in Squad garbage. They’d been waiting for over an hour on the tarmac, in the rain. It soaked the freaky carpet they had her standing on, her toes were going wrinkly on the bottom. Drenched to the skin, clammy and cold, Bridget was beginning to lose all of the reluctant fondness she had for the grunt. 

She twisted the thick silver ring on her middle finger, rocked back and forth from heel to toe, made the guards twitch a little, and kept herself as busy as she could. 

Finally, Flag’s helo landed, spewing every man, woman, and thing with more cold water and blasting Bridget’s hair into her face. He climbed down out of the loading doors, squinting against the storm. 

“Walker! Let’s do this!” He barked over the roar of the slowing rotors. His hand squelched when he roughly grabbed on to hers and practically pulled her off of the carpet patch. She wasn’t allowed off of it unless Flag had a hold of her somehow. Bridget breathed deeply, in and out of her nose, and then once again, closing her eyes and thinking of the prickle of the cement beneath her pruned toes. 

Rough and freezing rolled and flipped into silky and lukewarm. It reached up around her ankles and caressed her calves. All of the bitter, damp, chill that had wormed into her bones was gone. Flag still had his eyes closed tight. He’d never gotten used to it-- closing his eyes in one world and opening them in another. 

Bridget squeezed his fingers sharply and set off along the Way. A purple, green and black cosmos restlessly churned above their heads. Flag had puked his guts out the first time he looked at it. She didn’t blame him, it was nauseating if you weren’t used to it. 

The bright golden glow from the path lit his face better than the grimy daylight they’d just come from. He looked like shit that had gone through a wood chipper. A giant black bruise marred one eye. A puffy gash leaked down his left cheek. 

Safe guess, he hadn’t slept in a few days. 

Bridget got her bearings, counted the number of times Flag had saved her ass, and made a decision. 

As he trailed behind her, favoring his left knee and half-stumbling, she knew her choice was right. The silence was only broken by the shuffle of feet and the shifting of the Colonel’s pack as he tried to keep his balance. 

The Way was not always kind to its travelers. To get to where Waller wanted, they would have to cross jagged, cruel ground that Flag was clearly in little state to deal with. Lucky for him, that wasn’t where she was leading him, at least not for a while. 

She took him past Gahenna, to a little rise in the path marked only by a dullness on one side, a dark patch that could’ve just been a shadow. It wasn’t. It was a glimpse to what lay behind it. She snaked her fingers around its soft edge and pulled it back with her free hand, bracing against a nearby boulder with her opposite leg. 

Flag looked even more confused than when he’d travelled with her for the first time. 

The foxhole was reinforced with wooden braces, the floor and walls were compacted dirt, and to Flag’s eyes at least, it looked freakishly Earth-y. 

Bridget turned to him expectantly when he didn’t make a move. 

“Do I have to kick your bad leg out from under you?” 

“The fuck’s this?” He asked, free hand going to the tablet that she knew held the power to blow her head off at worst, give her a nasty electrical shock at best. 

“Somewhere for you to sleep.” 

He sniffed and cleared his throat. “Hell no.” His head shook emphatically. “Pyeongchang, now. I ain’t getting dead by whatever the fuck follows you out here.” 

“Shape you’re in, you won’t get to Pyeongchang. Get in before I make you.” 

“Watch it, Walker. I know we’ve been buddy-buddy lately, but-”

“You’ll still blow my head off. I know, grunt. I know.” 

He wouldn’t budge. 

“Luthor doesn’t know this is here. It’s in Ireland, 1972. The IRA forgot about it, the world forgot about it. I dug up once and freaked the shit out of a dairy cow.” 

Flag’s lips tugged into a hint of the smile. “Still not goin’ in there.” 

Bridget rolled her eyes and caught the back of his knee with her foot, buckling him into the hole. Their connected hands pulled her in after him and they landed in a heap. He grunted and swore and glared at her like she’d blown up a puppy. 

His shoulder had knocked the air out of her lungs on the landing, and she was being to regret not just letting him struggle through to Pyeongchang. He was a heavy fucker, and a man who was 6’ 2” fell harder than most. 

“Time works funny here,” She wheezed. When that didn’t seem to work she added, “I pinky swear we’ll get to Pyeongchang on time.” She held out the said digit in earnest, watching the young officer with an old man’s wrinkles fight between his body’s needs and his orders as a soldier. 

“I’m not going to kill you, Colonel.” 

“No, you’ll just leave me here until I go insane.” Flag muttered under his breath, scanning the edge of the path for a way out. They were stretched out as far as their bound hands would let them. His body was tensed, hand on the button that’d fry her nervous system. 

“Won’t do that either.” She told him, trying to not flinch away. Flag read people like animals. Retreating would mean she was hiding something. Her pinky hovered unsteadily, as she kept eye contact with the Colonel. He was puzzling things out, from the look of his eyebrows. He was clocking exits, making sure he could always reach that damned button, trying to guess what horrible shit she had up her sleeve for him. 

Bridget was almost as surprised as he was when he took it with his own, twisting them together in a sharp motion before leaning back against the foxhole’s earthen wall. 

“You pull anything, you’re fried.” 

“I’m trying to be nice Flag.” 

“Now why do I not believe that?” 

“You’re an asshole?” Bridget offered, looking over the busted, bruised Green Beret with a shrug and a sneer. This was what doing nice shit got you-- suspicion and threats. 

He snored like a beached walrus, head tilted back, mouth agape. All of the tension had left his body, like his puppet master just dropped his strings and walked away. 

It seemed like ever since she’d been locked up, all she’d been doing was thinking and waiting around for other people’s shit. A few years ago, it would’ve driven her up the wall to have all this time to remember the shit she’d done. Now, well, she’d done worse shit since then. Worse shit to better people. It’d stopped gnawing at her guts so much. Except, of course, Luthor. Nothing, no amount of time, no matter what shit she shoved up her nose and poured into her liver, nothing would make Luthor go away. 

He was just as much a part of her as he was part of the Void. What Waller never understood, what Flag was just beginning to know, was that the Void wasn’t hell for Bridget. Hell was inside her. 

Melodramatic? Sure. Reality? Yes. 

But there were other things to ponder. So there they sat, awake and asleep, free and incarcerated. Staying as far away as she could with their hands tied, she peeled back the other edge of the Way, just enough for one eye to glimpse out of the foxhole. That was as much as she dared. 

It still took her breath away, twenty years later.

Any other day, Flag would have them marching through here like Waller was personally after them with a whip. She didn’t get much time to look for the sublime and terrifying. The longest she’d been able to stay on the path was half an hour since Luthor had-- had become what he had become. This place was a lucky stumble after she robbed a South African arms dealer. 

She really had dug her way up and run into a very concerned Guernsey. 

Flag snorted and jerked in his sleep, eyes darting around under their lids. 

He had to be dreaming of June Moon, who had been laid up in a coma after Enchantress died. Waller still had her, of course. Rick Flag would be under that woman’s thumb until he was dead, and even then she might still own his soul. 

Hours ticked by the hole, universes unfurled and imploded before her eyes, and neither Luthor nor Waller were none the wiser. A bloom of red had started to come towards them, bound by branching navy blue tangles of starstuff. It pulsed as it grew, beating like a great big bloody heart. A warning. 

Bridget bit the inside of her cheek lightly and let the path close over them again. 

She cleaned up Flag’s face first, figuring it impolite to just let him sit there and bleed. The knee would be hard to splint without him waking up so she left it. His head fell forward onto her shoulder and with a jolt he was awake and flailing. 

Her wrist was tight in his free hand, twisted back at an increasingly painful angle.

“Easy, cowboy!” Bridget barked, eyes bulging as she watched her hand go in the opposite direction it was supposed to. 

Flag’s panicked eyes settled once the focused on her face. “How long?” He asked, clearing his throat and dropping her arm. 

“Full seven hours.” 

“It’s eight. Full eight hours.” 

“Whatever.” 

She readjusted their grip and got to her feet. “You alright on that knee?” 

He pulled himself as upright as he could get in the cramped space, and nodded, testing if he could place weight on it. It held up, for now. “We’re good.” 

She led him out and back along the way they came for what could’ve been a mile, or less than a football field. He really wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. Of all the shit he had to do for Waller, this was the shit that freaked him out the most. His stomach flopped every time he heard his day included Walker. 

Following her through the unending cosmos through which the ghost, the angry, vengeful, ghost of her first victim haunted her, with the chance of insanity or worse-- simply not existing, was not on the top of his list in life. 

She was alright, really. On her own, she was downright pleasant in comparison to her teammates. Her crazy didn’t smack him in the face. It snuck into the corners of her, the parts she didn’t show off. Her and Quinn were opposite sides of the spectrum, but both achieved the same thing. He had no idea what’d crack her open and what would make her shut down.

If he could get over the murder as a juvenile bit, he’d probably even like her. Then again, it literally followed them around every mission they went on, so the chances of that were slim. 

Every edge had become jagged and sharp along the way, like some had taken a hammer to clay tile and they walked along the split. Her bare feet didn’t flinch when they arched over what looked like black glass that scattered over the golden path. 

Walker moved here with an ease she didn’t possess on Earth, their plane, whatever the fuck she called reality. He wasn’t even sure it was reality anymore, if there weren’t more realities, if the one he was born to was the only place he would feel solid in anymore. When they came out the other side, he was always frozen for a few seconds, his mind trying to hold itself together. 

She didn’t have that problem. Which was either years of practice or a sign that she didn’t have it together to begin with. 

Digger Harkness kept bitching to the guards that she’d scream in her sleep, when she was awake, sometimes for an hour whole. 

What nightmares could scare the woman, Flag had no idea. 

Waller wanted her DNA. If she had the clearance, he’d bet his ass that she’d start some freaky metahuman breeding program with Walker. Her father was the Holy Grail of metahuman genetic material. Unfortunately for Waller, he was too old, clever, and charming to ever get caught, unlike his youngest. She was his last offspring in a run of over twenty. 

He’d been in the room when the Wall told Walker who her father was. The binder she had on him was gigantic, bulging at the seams. Waller wanted him more than anything. Immortal, and capable of fathering any kind of metahuman imaginable, she probably saw him as the key to a metahuman army at her beck and call, capable of much more than Task Force X. 

For now, thought, they were just supposed to use her for reconnaissance, observe her fitness to be involved with more and more members of the team. 

“Here.” Bridget said, plopping down on a seemingly random ledge. 

He slung his pack off of his back, and unzipped it to reveal rations and water enough for four days, and a pair of small black sneakers. She loosened up their laces and closed her eyes, setting the shoes on her lap while her free hand felt around for something she only knew how to look for. 

The jump would come soon. 

Flag took one last look around. They were just out of the valley and stretched out before him seemed to be a great mirror, a perfect reflection of the almost daylight-bright stars that flooded above them. It rippled just then, a great heavy sigh of wind blowing across it, picking up bits of quicksilver that flashed and danced and fell. 

It was beautiful. He could admit that. No matter how mind-melting his surroundings they were always beautiful in some shape or form. 

“Got it. C’mere Colonel. Let’s get bibimbap.” Her sarcastic smile reflected the bright shine of the lake for a second, before they were being pulled, pushed, scrunched, twisted and then were back into a cold night filled with noise. 

She toed into her shoes. “Boost?” Walker asked in a hiss, pointing the apartment’s heating vent they were under. Flag didn’t respond for a second before he nodded, eyes still squeezed shut. He took the bindings off of their hands. 

He caged his fingers and knelt down, letting her step into his hold and lifting her up as she unfolded the Swiss Army knife on steroids that had permanent residence in her jacket pocket. She had it on her when she was hauled into Belle Reve. 

In the half-dark of street lights coming through the blinds, she worked as quickly as she could to unscrew the vent grill and sneak her hand into it. 

The feel of duct tape made her stop, and switch to the actual knife. She sliced the target out of its adhesive and tucked into her pocket. There were more little bumps of duct tape, some small squishy, some large and stuffed with American dollars. A fake passport was just icing on the cake. 

Flag set her down when she tapped the top of his head. 

The television was blaring in the unit just above them. A girl cried out in Korean, sad and desperate like the love of her life had been hit by a bus. The squealing of tires followed by gunfire confirmed Bridget’s suspicion it was a soap opera. 

The room was awfully clean for some mole’s safehouse. A bed with its sheets corners folded expertly sat pushed up against the far wall, as far from the windows as possible. The kitchenette’s faucet gleamed. 

All of hers used to be covered in pizza boxes, empty beer cans, and receipts. One even had a stray cat that stopped by for old crusts. It had been a couple years though, the cat had probably moved on. 

She handed the contents of the vent to Flag, who dumped the lot into his pack before binding their hands together again, palm to palm. She shucked her shoes off, wriggled her toes, and squeezed his hand. 

In another world, he’d like her. A world without a boy murdered at 12, six men driven insane, fortunes taken, heirlooms filched. 

They had a different way back, shorter and steeper, bathed in phosphorescent light that sparked and fizzed as they passed by.

And they were back on the tarmac, in the rain, and when Flag checked his watch it had only taken them five minutes. 

Bridget stepped back onto the carpet and waited for the guard to come with her boots. She stepped into them and watched the rookie allen wrench them closed. Flag unbound their hands for a final time and looked at her for a second. There wasn’t much to read on her face. She looked tired, and resigned. The happiness of her time on the Way always faded fast. 

“Thanks.” 

She gave him a short nod of recognition and turned to be led back to her cell. Alpha 02 took her arm with a jerk and frog marched her in out of the rain, wet hair plastered to her back. 

Flag carried on with his day, to the astonishment of GQ and the rest of the men that’d been with him on the full team op. The seven hours on the Way, that small bit of rest without Waller or Belle Reve, took up his mind that night. He couldn’t even figure out himself why he let himself sleep under her watch. Maybe the bandages on his face told him what he needed to know. 

He would’ve liked Walker. 

In a different world.


	2. Chapter 2

She still saw Luthor in her dreams. They would walk the Way between worlds like they had when she was young. 

Luthor was still young. 

Forever young. 

They would walk along that thin gold line until it became a river, seething at its banks, ever-threatening to spill over and sweep them out into some dimension not their own. It would lap at her ankles, cradle her toes, reach up and caress her shin when she needed to change course. Warm, and giddy, and gentle it would lead her, knowing her destination even if she did not. 

It would make Luthor’s skin glow with its reflection. 

She would look up, like she did every time she had this dream. 

For a moment, fleeting and brief, through her mind’s eye she could see it all again. That boundless spiraling arm of lights, swathes of purples and blues that went so far she could never walk to their ends, the lofty vault that made her feel smaller than any sky could. 

She would wander without fear, following Luthor- willowy and whole and silent- until all at once he would turn. If she was lucky she’d fight her way to consciousness before she could see what they’d done to him. 

Today, tonight, whenever, she was unlucky. 

She knew what was coming. 

His face would be broken, teeth jutting through his lips, eyes swollen shut, everything in purples and blues only these shades made her stomach roil. The vault would begin to spin, faster and faster, and the river would pull at her feet, wrap itself around her knees and wrench at her until she would fall. Her palms would crack on its surface, her own open-mouthed face would stare back at her in gold. 

Luthor’s shoes, the ones he proudly kept white, splattered with blood and something darker, would come forward. 

The gold would come for her fingers then, lace through them and yank down so hard it felt like her hands were being ripped off of her wrists. A tendril would crush around her waist and knock all of the air from her lungs before it began to lower her into the river’s embrace. It would crush her bones, and her fingernails would tear from their beds when she tried to claw herself back to the surface, and Luthor-- 

Luthor would have eyes shot through with gold, beautiful and horrifying, and accusatory. He’d stretch forth his arm, the bone shining pearlescent as it jutted from his skin-

She vomited over the side of her bunk. The sound echoed against the cinderblock walls and made her puke again. 

“Oy! The fuck’s going on?” A voice yelled from the air vent. “You can’t still be having withdrawals-” 

Whatever he said next was interrupted by another wave of bile. She made it to the cold steel latrine this time, and knelt heavily on her knees, holding back as much of her hair as she could. 

A fist hit a rough tattoo against the neighboring cell’s door. 

“Fuck off!” She screamed, hands pulling her own hair tight, eyes staring up into the bright fluorescent lights. “For the love of fuck, leave me alone!” 

Harkness was a bastard. 

They hadn’t worked together yet, but she was rueing the day when she’d have to drag Captain Boomerang’s bogan ass through dimensions. 

Sat back on her haunches, she tried to keep herself focused on the feel of her hair in her hands, the slight tug at her roots, all over her scalp, something to tie her down to reality. It was getting easier and easier to leave her head, dream while she was awake. 

She shouldn’t have let Flag sleep in the Way. Luthor knew he’d been there. He was angry. He hated people who could leave, not bound to it for eternity, not alive and dead all at once. He’d make her pay for it. 

Bridget rocked back onto her heels and tried to only think of the air coming into her lungs and the breath that left her- even if it reeked. 

Maybe he’d kill Harkness when they went through. That’d be nice. 

When her chest had stopped heaving, and there wasn’t anything left for her stomach to void, she gulped down water from a cupped palm. It ran down her chin and neck, never enough, not even close to being enough. 

Her numb fingers helped reduce the puffiness of her eyes, but did little to clear her mind. 

“The fuck you scream so much?” Boomerang asked, tone hostile and demanding. 

“Shit dreams.” She called back to him, pressing her sweaty back against the cold concrete. Her arms fell limp into her lap, the silver of her rings glinting dully. 

“In the middle of the fuckin’ afternoon?” 

She shrugged to no one. “What else am I supposed to do? I’ve got nothin’ to do in here besides sleep.” She said angrily, biting down on her consonants. 

“Well, if ain’t much trouble, GET A FUCKIN’ HOLD OF YERSELF!” A fist smacked their shared wall. 

“Go fuck yourself.” Bridget half-wheezed, pulling herself up off the floor. She held onto her knees for a second before bracing herself for the head rush. 

“And give you a free show? I think not, darl’. I’m chargin’ from here on out.” 

She leaned back against the wall as she closed her eyes. The nausea faded and gave way to anger that simmered beneath her skin. 

“To hear you fuck a stuffed horse? You couldn’t pay me to listen to that shit.”

“Don’t pretend y’ don’t want a piece of the Captain, darl.” Harkness practically crooned through the ventilation shaft they shared. 

“Hm, grown man who, again, FUCKS a stuffed horse. Just my type. How did you know?” 

This would go on for the rest of the evening. They’d scream at each other through the wall until dinner. After dinner they’d start up again. No better way to pass the time. 

“Y’ know, I was almost sorry that red bastard got you too.” 

“Like hell you were.” 

“Was.” He said, insistent. “Then you turned out to be barking.” 

Everything that had been sweaty had now gone clammy, and the sticky humidity of whatever God-forsaken swamp they were in died after the sun went down. There was sick all over the floor, splattered too far away from the drain to rinse down with handfuls of water from the sink-toilet combo installed at the back wall. She’d have to just sit in it until they came by with the grotesquely orange Nutri-loaf that was partially responsible for the volatility of her guts. 

“And you turned out to be an ass. We’re in prison, dude, only an idiot would be surprised.” She rolled her head back and forth, searching for relief from the tension that was building up her spine and across her shoulders. 

“Dude?” Harkness stretched her American accent until she sounded like a Californian teenager. “Duuude? What are you, twelve?” 

Bridget almost snapped back before a realization hit her. Her brows furrowed. “You’ve never seen me, have you?” 

“What-” 

“I’m just a voice to you, big bad boomerang man.” She simpered. “Just a voice through a wall-” 

Her full height wasn’t enough to bring her face up to the vent, but she stretched and went for it anyway. 

“How do you even know I’m real?” 

“You quit that shit-” 

“Aw, c’mon, you scared you’ve just been talking to yourself this whole time?” Her laugh was more of a snort. 

“I hear you fucking puke your guts out-”

 

“Do you?” 

His fist smacked into the other side of the wall inches above her head. 

“You missed, Boomy.” 

“We already have a crazy witch-” He groaned, and she could hear the rustle of his clothes as he slid down the wall. 

“Whatever. You got no way of knowing whether or not I’m real until you see me, yeah? I’m a fucking cat in a box to you.” 

“I’ve complained about you, darl, and the guards know you’re fucking real.” 

“They done anything? Maybe they’re just ignoring another crazy fucker who hears shit.” 

She knew he really didn’t believe her, that he knew she was a part of reality, but there was nothing else to do. If her luck held, she could get to the real existential shit, not just dumbing down Schrodinger for a man who groaned out “Pinky” when he got off. 

Harkness had gone silent for far too long. She’d pushed it too far. 

Bridget retreated into the corner of her cell the furthest away from the puddle of vomit underneath her cot. If she folded her legs in, she took up almost no space at all, in a cell so tiny, in a prison so forgotten it was like- poof!- her dream of non-existence became real. Except she couldn’t get rid of her head. There was no position of limbs, no starvation, no quick and easy numbness, that could fold away her mind so easily. 

God she wanted- well, whatever she could get her hands on. A prison had to have prison hooch- even a clandestine one. Weed was everywhere in the correctional system, and she’d happily carve a piece and puff whatever shaggy, dried out, shake they’d give her. K would be hard to get- 

She dug into her temples, hard, with her own thumbs. 

At least when Harkness was being a cocksucker she was too angry to remember the monotonous list of substances she’d give an arm and a leg for. 

“Boomy?”

Her voice echoed through the vent, only to be met with silence. Her teeth caught against the dead skin on her lips. 

“Boomy, I ever tell you how dumb I think unicorns are?” 

“I’m not talking to you.” 

You just did- she bit that back, eager for the distraction now that he still seemed agreeable. 

“Why the hell does a horse need a horn? How would it even use it-” A gag-inducing thought leapt unbidden into her mind, “Never mind the last bit. Horns are dumb. They belong on rhinos, goats, and cows, nothing else.” 

There was nothing for a while, and she’d almost resigned herself to the senseless cacophony of increasingly frantic urges. 

“Narwhals.” 

“What?” 

 

“What about narwhals. They’re unicorns of the sea.” 

His voice was practically soft when he’d said it. 

Bridget was frozen for a moment. 

“They’re just fancy whales, not mythical, virgin stealing ponies.” 

It was Harkness’s turn to be confused. 

“The fuck did you just say love?” 

“Virgin stealing ponies.” She repeated again, enunciating clearly. “That was they’re big thing.” 

She couldn’t help but feel like she was adding fuel to his unicorn-sex-obsession, and as uncomfortable as that was to think about, the alternative was worse. 

“A unicorn could only be tamed by a virgin, so they’d huck a girl out in the woods, the dumb fancy horse would lay down his horn and bingo-bango captive magical beast.” 

Harkness snorted unkindly. “Fuckin’ nerd-” 

“Hey! I’m not the one who brought up narwhals-”

“That’s just common knowledge, love.”

Her loud “Tch!” echoed out into nothing. 

“Look, I still don’t get it-”

“Nothin’ to get love, Pinky’s a magical fucking creature. Doesn’t have to make sense.” 

The sharp march of boots from outside in the corridor signaled that dinner was about to be served, in true Belle Reve fashion. 

“Buckle up, Boomy. They’re coming in hot tonight.” She warned him in sing song. 

“Luck, darl’. Heard Alpha 4 has a bit of a thing for crazies.” was his growled out response. 

The guards who looked after Harley had to keep their distance, the same with the only occupant of the Reptile House, so it left Boomy, Deadshot, and herself as the vents for the aggression and anger of the correctional officers of Belle Reve Penitentiary. Bridget could keep her mouth shut well enough to avoid a beating, but Digger Harkness had never yet seen a moment he thought wouldn’t be improved by the sound of his own voice. 

She listened to them lock-step, closer and closer, until it all went quiet. She shoved her fingers into her ears just before the sirens went off and the PA system started blaring. 

“Prisoners will step away from the door and remain against the back wall of their cell at all times.” 

“Prisoners will not speak to or interact with any of the guards at this time.” 

“Prisoners who refuse, and are uncooperative-” 

The voice droned on and on, as the all the lights flashed red and the heavy steel doors swung open. 

Bridget was already pressed up against the designated wall, and waved to the men, or women, or whoever- their faces were always covered up between the masks and the goggles and the helmets. You would think they were all terribly infected with the latest version of the plague, or under intense quarantine. There wasn’t an inch of exposed skin amongst them. Must’ve been stifling during the day. 

She let herself get smacked back, both arms pinned to the concrete by two of them. She couldn’t see a damn thing above their shoulders, but it was easy enough to know the rest were tossing her bed and the measly pile of books and clothes beside it. 

“You got on the shit again?” Four barked on when he stepped into the sick on the floor. 

The guards to her sides drew back. 

She had to crane her neck to look him in the tactical goggles, and offered up her arms for inspection. He yanked them both forward unceremoniously, and pushed up her sleeves. The orange jumpsuit had been too large for her at the beginning of her sentence, and now, five months in, it was baggier than ever. 

“Strip.” He didn’t have to do much with his voice to make it a command. Some men yelled to be heard, others growled, most had to try at least a little. Four didn’t seem to be one of those men. 

Bridget obliging went for the zipper and shrugged out of the top, turning when prodded, bending when shoved. 

He had the whole thing down around her calves, bunched up above the infernal contraptions they kept on her feet at all hours. His gloved hands ghosted over everywhere he could think of. 

She stared off somewhere above his right shoulder, into one of the blinding red lights. It was one of the things you could always count on as a thief. The body search was a client’s way of reminding their hire who was in charge. The guards were no different. Bullies grew up to hold a variety of positions in society. 

The kevlar of his gloves was rough against her breasts, her back, her legs. He took his time, all quite clinical and detached, until he grabbed onto the hinge of her jaw and pressed with his thumb and finger. She opened her mouth, breathing deep through her nose, and only twitched when his grip didn’t let up. 

He held her there, face forced up, teeth drying out like she was at the dentist’s, for a long beat. 

The pre-recorded warnings were still booming over the speakers, telling both of them to cooperate and spare themselves going truly into the hole. Where they were now was a step up from solitary. For an hour each day they were let out into the sunlight, and they could scream at each other all they wanted. 

He was waiting for something. She made a great deal out of rolling her eyes and then looked him in the goggles. 

“There’s a good girl.” 

Four let go of Bridget’s face, patted her cheek and stepped back into the doorway. 

They’d left the sick and her dinner on the floor. 

Harkness started bellowing five seconds after, and she listened through the wall as he fought tooth and nail for the sheer fucking joy of it, the chance to excise his frustration on another human body. He was alright for few minutes. Bridget knew from where his voice seemed to resonate that he was a tall man, and to keep himself alive after fucking over so many people he had to be tough, or wiry, or have that low cunning she’d run into before. 

Soon enough a heavy body struck the back wall, and the humming buzz of tasers went off. They tossed his room the same as hers, and the lights died. 

Bridget ate her paltry dinner, wincing with every chew, in the corner furthest from the quickly solidifying vomit. When she was done, she slid the tray back into the slot in the door and settled back into her post to wait for Harkness to regain consciousness. 

He was a bastard, she thought, licking the last bit of stodgy gravy from her fingers. 

He was a bastard, but he kept her sane.


	3. Chapter 3

“Come on, cowboy. Just a little bit further-” She breathed out against Flag’s neck. His head was lolling over her shoulder, back and forth, back and forth as he tried to talk. Bridget planted her feet and gave one last tug, pulling his legs out of sight behind a dumpster in the alley.

“You’re goddamn heavy for a skinny guy. You gotta leg full of lead or somethin’-”

“No, no, Bridge-” Flag’s lips didn’t quite form the letters he wanted and he shook his head emphatically again. “Sumbitch, ner-” he couldn’t make the buzz of a v.

“Nerve gas, I got it.” She pushed his limp body off of her chest and leaned him up against the wall. “Lucky for us, I’m fucking short.”

And she’d seen the nozzles installed in the wall. And held her breath while body slamming Flag through the exit. They’d tripped the alarm system just before they got out, there were lights blaring, and a siren wailed off in the distance.

“Yeah,” Rick snorted with a laugh, a hand jerking in a half-hearted gesture. “Y’re fuckin’ tiny.”

“Focus big guy, I need you conscious, and I ain’t carrying you.”

The siren screamed closer and closer.

“Oh God, unless I have to.”

She calculated how long it would take them to get back to the extraction site, how long it would take on the Way, how much time they had left. Her fingers curled into her hair and pulled. She didn’t want to do this again.

“Shit. Shit, shit shit.” Bridget spat, squeezing her eyes shut. She grabbed onto Flag’s shoulders and pulled him back out into the alley. She stepped out of her shoes and muttered more curses, wriggling her bare toes against the grimy, slippery ground. There was a possibility just to her left, another one behind her, it’d just take a step-

“Whatyerdoin-”

She hoisted him up and tried to hold more of his weight for him. “One step, one step, cowboy. That’s all I need out of you.” Her arms banded around him tight, as she tried to pull him along. “C’mon, grunt-”

Flag took one stuttering, stumbling step backwards as she led him. Bridget closed her eyes and when she opened them the stars were on fire. Her throat went dry, and the itching sensation that had begun at the base of her neck spread over her skin.

Wrong, wrong, very wrong. Bad.

He couldn’t hold himself up anymore, and Flag slumped like a rag doll in her arms. Her eyes frantically searched for a hint, a clue of which direction he was coming from. She had told them this was a bad idea. She’d warned the Wall that Luthor would be waiting the next time, that it was better to do this some other way.

Bridget tried to only think of the feel of her skin slipping over the ground, the calluses of her feet catching and sliding, waiting, desperately hoping that she could find somewhere like she had in the alley. Her arms were shaking with the effort of supporting Flag, but she couldn’t just drop him. They had come back to that shattered valley of broken black glass, for the fourth time, and she was beginning to think that wasn’t a coincidence.

She gritted her teeth and shifted her hold on him, hoisting him by his belt and trying to let his weight settle on her hips and planted leg. There was no wind, no noise, nothing besides an oppressive heat that spread out from where they were pressed together. The colors were too sharp, the lights were all too bright.

A low humming began to build in her ears, an amplifying pressure that drowned out the raspy sounds of ragged breathing and hammering hearts. A silence so complete and overwhelming followed after, the stillness fading as the humming would start again. It came and went in waves that Bridget knew would only get stronger as he got closer.

Her fingers dug into Flag’s chest, but the man couldn’t feel it. His eyes were barely open slits.

She stretched her bare foot to her right.

She’d be lucky if she could get another step out of Flag. Her options were narrowing by the second. Her throat was beginning to constrict, panic threatening to take over her mind. She couldn’t see him again, if she saw him again-

The sole of her foot caught on something. She began leaning towards it. She only had to belly flop them through, as long as he was moving with her, he’d be fine. It sounded less reassuring the more she thought about it, but she went for it anyways. With a sharp jerk and a twist she sent them to the ground.

They came up somewhere else along the Way. Bridget fell into a tense crouch, still holding on to Flag the best she could. Her muscles were beginning to scream at her. Forcing her way through the fabric of reality too many times would do hell on her body.

The humming wave washed over them from behind.

Every hair on the back of Bridget’s neck stood up.

The humming escalated into a buzzing rattle that she could feel in her bones.

The view above had changed little.

“Shit, shit, motherfucker-”

She’d just looped them back around, closer.

The increasingly frantic shuffle of her feet was drowned out three times before she screamed in triumph. She wouldn’t look up, she wouldn’t look up-

She could feel those golden eyes on her, even if she couldn’t see them. Holding on to Flag was like holding onto a chunk of molten metal.

**Drop him.**

“Shut the fuck up.” Bridget muttered, ignoring the way her voice wavered. She pressed down and tried to feel out the softest landing.

**Drop him.**

“Make me.”

With a final lunge and a prayer, she rolled Flag and herself backwards, her left foot hitting the thin, slippery reality first. Flag slid through, his weight carrying her behind him, but before they were gone, she glimpsed over his shoulder.

Whatever breath was in her lungs was sucked away.

The burnt out silhouette of what could loosely be called a man stalked towards them, distorted and twisted like melted wax. Under the convulsing, twisting clouds of red and purple, he outstretched his arms for only a moment. He stopped, and watched her, his gaze distant.

He could afford to be patient. She had to outrun him every time.

He only had to catch her once.

She hung there, in between, for longer that she should have. In the blackness, nothing was real. Once she wrenched her eyes open- so much reality, so much shit just smacking her in the face.

The dull thud of a body hitting pavement echoed through her head.

Something exploded in her veins. Someone was screaming.

It hurt, everything hurt, and she opened her eyes. She was flat on the tarmac, Flag half underneath her.

“Get her off him! Onto the A-57, now!”

There were other voices yelling, but it all seemed to go in one ear and out the other. The first hand to land roughly on her shoulder was violently shoved off, her hand closing around the pistol Flag kept holstered at his hip.

“Woah, woah, easy now, alright?”

The man was one of Flag’s boys, from his uniform. His open, placating palms blurred somewhere above her head.

“Get your hands up where we can see them!”

A sharp crack echoed against hard cement and then Bridget-

Bridget couldn’t remember if she had closed her eyes, or if she had slept. The pale, watery light coming through from the high slit window made her guess it was morning, but how she came back to her cell was a mystery, and the rest of the night was TV static. She watched the tendons in the back of her hand move. This much trouble with cognitive clarity-

“The fucks wrong now?”

The voice floated over her lazily, along with the dust motes and the sticky hot air.

A numb sort of pleasure had settled into her body, radiating out from her bones, becoming a lazy, delirious aching as she moved.

She was off her tits on some kind of pain med.

It took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out why. Joint by joint she went, testing the see where the pain would spike. If she’d just looked down she could’ve spared herself the sharp stabbing sensation that shot up her leg when she jerked a foot. They weren’t in the heavy, restrictive boots. Instead of metal, they were completely wrapped in bandages, covered in layers of medical tape.

She’d done it again and felt like an idiot.

The soles of her feet would be burned to a blistered, angry red, maybe up her ankles and calves as well. She’d moved a lot of shit in a very short time. There were limits to what she could do, even back before the murder-mayhem-madness bit of her life.

“Oi, crazy!”

She tried to answer, but all that came out of her mouth was a muffled gargle of syllables that didn’t form words. Delightful.

“Shit-”

It was strange to hear him, to have proof of another person existing besides herself. She was stuck, there, in her body, in her own little universe. Her limbs responded sluggishly, her hands were clumsy and indelicate. There was nothing outside the hazy vision of her eyes, besides his voice through the wall and the sunlight in the window.

It was nice. Happy, even, for a little while.

She hadn’t felt like this since the last time she fell down the rabbit hole and dirtied her fluffy white tail.

The bastards had stuck her with ketamine. They knocked her out with horse tranquilizers.

Bridget would have to send Alpha Four a decorative fruit basket, or something. This was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her on accident. It let her forget, well, everything. The humming, buzzing numbness lapped at her mind in waves that would drown out the world and then slowly fade.

Boomer’s voice became part of the background, a low, gravelly rumbling that punctuated the faint, slow sound of breathing.

She had heard Luthor’s voice, a fact that would normally send her into a panic-fueled bender, but someone else had already provided the bender, and the fear was something distant now. She couldn’t really move, but that was fine. No movement, no Way, no Luthor.

Later, when she came down off this shit, she’d panic.

He was supposed to stay quiet.

That was the deal.

What she had given him was not enough now.

She had nothing left. Not in here, locked away from the world, and the only “gift” he would accept- she couldn’t fucking do it the first time. Bridget doubted she could do it now. The floaty, calm, delirium receded a little more. If she could even find Lips-

His face sprung to mind unbidden, perfect at seventeen.

His nickname fit. They were beautiful, full and curved, fit to his face with a craftsman’s hands, balanced by the sharpness of his cheeks, his knife-gleam smile. He was so damn pretty, the girls would whisper it behind their hands on front steps and stoops in the summer when they’d go sloping by, Lips, Luthor, and the rest.

His real name was Ben Murphy.

He was always there, just to the side, in her memories of that neighborhood, that childhood.

“Darl’, you know yer not makin’ any sense right?”

Boomer was agitated, but her brain stuttered trying to figure out why. She’d tried to respond and just couldn’t, it wasn’t like she’d been mouthing off this whole time-

“Huh?”

Bridget ran her tongue over her chapped lips and gave it another go.

“Sh-”

“What now?” When she didn’t respond, Boomer went back to muttering to himself. “Flippin’ loony you are. I told ya before we didn’t need another crazy cunt.”

“They shot me, asshole.” was what she tried to say.

She cleared her throat and tried again. It was slow, and slurred, but her lips were able to form actual words.

“Shot me, asshole. Ketamine.”

His laughter broke the last of the nice, cloudy feeling in her head.

“What? They fuckin’ tranq’ed ya ass?”

Bridget hissed angrily.

“Like a goddamn safari- did the Crocodile Hunter show up?”

The paltry comfort his voice offered was replaced with irritation. If all he was going to do was cackle like a mad old hag she’d go insane. Her limbs began to respond more and more, the sensations fading back to the way she usually felt in reality. A slow, heavy sadness swept into her guts.

Bridget turned painfully onto her side, trying to keep her feet as still as possible.

It felt as if she just blinked and then Lips was there, behind her back, just out of sight.

“Hey, babes,” His voice had always been _slippy_ , but there was a slur to it she recognized the second it hit her ears. He was off his face as well. “Looks like y’ got yourself some problems.”

There was that fucking laugh.

“You know, there was a time you’d come to me with this shit. ‘Lips, it’s too much’, ‘Lips, make me feel something real.”

There was a crackling sound behind her head, like he’d just lit a cigarette.

“It worked for a while, didn't it? And then you come home looking like hell- and all of a sudden it don’t work anymore. We don't work anymore-”

Boomer's irritated, grating jibes or her own mind's hallucinations, it was hard to tell which was worse.

“-but that’s old shit now. You look thin, baby.”

She’d lost twenty pounds since she was transferred to Belle Reve, and Lips had liked her thicker. “Lush, baby, that kinda body-”.

“I bet in reality you’re getting fat and red-faced.”

“Not nice, Bridget, and I always liked you better nice.”

“You don’t like shit. You’re not real.”

“Sure, baby, whatever you say.”

She could smell Marlboro Reds.

A heaviness settled over her waist. Bridget wondered for a moment, as she stared into the gray concrete wall on the other side of her cell, if she looked down would her mind conjure up his arm? Could it make the riot of tattoos that she knew lines of just as well as the smell of his sweat, the change of his voice when he drank.

“Sleep, doofus, unless you really wanna be awake for the come down.”

She didn’t. Bridget closed her eyes again, and somewhere in between the rumble of two voices she fell into a heavy black hole, without dreams or sounds or pain.


End file.
